“Creation Lake”, by Rachel Kushner, translated from English (United States) by Emmanuelle and Philippe Aronson, Stock, “La cosmopolite”, 476 p., €23.90, digital 17 €.
His editor at Stock, Raphaëlle Liebaert, traces the first discussions with Rachel Kushner around what would become The Lake of Creation in 2018 and the publication in France of the author’s previous novel, The Mars Club (Stock). The American writer confirms that this was the time when she started working there. But the project comes from further afield. It dates back to 2008, when the “Tarnac affair” began, with the arrest, by the anti-terrorist police, of Julien Coupat and nine other people as part of an investigation into the sabotage of TGV lines – dragnet resulting, a decade later, in a legal fiasco.
What is the connection between an American author born in Oregon in 1968, based in Los Angeles, and this very French story revolving around a community farm-grocery store in Corrèze, run by very left-wing young people? It turns out that Rachel Kushner knows the protagonists. Her husband, Jason Smith, university professor, is the translator into English of, among others (Jacques Rancière, Alain Badiou, etc.), The Coming Uprising andto us friends (La Fabrique, 2007 and 2014), texts signed by the Invisible Committee, a collective entity linked to Tarnac (we summarize). She even says that « Julien » tried to convince her to write about their community, in order to give “their vision of history”but that she declined this proposal to become a sort of “official biographer”.
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